If by “bad” you mean “scary and realistic in how psychologically unhinged/damaged the two of them are” then yeah, sure. If you ask me, their relationship is deliciously abnormal, abnormally delicious, and downright well-written, and damn near redeems everything that might otherwise break suspension of disbelief in that series.

You know, in this universe, I don’t think we’ve actually been given much evidence of Ethan being a good person. (I admit this view may be coloured by my utter eye-rolling boredness with the other universe Ethan.)

Define “good person”. I mean, if the standard of goodness requires beating up/taking down villians, then the only people who qualify are Amazi-girl, Sarah, Malaya/Marcie/Carla, maybe Danny and arguably Dina. (Huh. Longer list than I expected.) By a more normal standard of goodness, Ethan gets a lot of credit for not meaning any harm, and for not doing anything that’s likely to harm anyone but himself and maybe Joyce, who is both asking for it and complicit. And by refusing Joyce’s advances here, he’s actually doing her a favor: trying to use him as her lust toy would *not* work out well. So yeah. By my read he’s a good person. Just badly misguided and having a bad idea of what he should be doing in his life and relationships.

Hmm. On the other hand, he would be doing much more of a favour by breaking up with her, or for that matter with never trying to go out with her in the first place. Not intending harm is not the same thing as not doing harm; I’m willing to see characters as neutral, but I think I need a bit more active getting around to doing something decent to go so far as to qualify a character as “good”. Feeling mildly worried about Amber isn’t quite enough; the fact that his chances of helping Amber are fairly clearly wounded by his leading Joyce on (however open Joyce might think her eyes were going into this) isn’t doing him any favours.

It might not be super-awesome and hero-level goodness, but we havehad scenes where Ethan shows he cares about others and tries to do what’s good for them, like in te beginning where he and Mike were concerned about Amber’s severe computer-addiction and did an intervention where they literally dragged her out of her room just so she could get some fredh air and hopefully not miss out on having a life in college.

And later when he needed some guidance I seem to recall (but I could be wrong) he said he was reticent about going to Amber about it, because she had already helped himmagainst his horrible parents all summer, so he didn’t want to dump more stuff on her.

So despite being flawed like any human, he //has// shown that he has some good sides, that he cares about others and tries to do wht’s best for his friends. He’s just desperate and confused right now, having problems accepting himself, his parents hate who he turned out to be (which people often forget can be utterly devastating when you’re that young), and he feels these urges are ruining his whole life.

So sure, he’s making bad choices. Who doesn’t? At least he’s shown he wants to do hat’s best for those he cares about. Might not be impressivee but it’s enough to land him as “good guy” in my book.

Technically, Mike dragged her out of her chair. Ethan just stood by. Which essentially defines him: he stands by and then fits in to whatever last happened that he had nothing to do with. So still understandably passive, but not praiseworthily so.

Wait, are we forgetting that he wants to “date” Joyce as well? Remember, he said he wanted to be normal, he didn’t want to be the gay kid cause it’s too hard.

Joyce is fighting her trauma as well by ignoring it and jumping into a relationship that requires little to no physicality on her end cause she’s scared and confused by it. (her assault did not help, probably, maybe)

They’re both hurting/using each other. And I think they both kind of know it. Good or bad are kind of simplistic terms to be using in this instance because they’re both in this thing for “grey” reasons.

In this one case, certainly, he’s co-opted. But his whole pattern of behaviour doesn’t make anything better. There’s a limit to how many times he gets to mess things up “just because he’s confused” (or whatever) and still count as a good person. At what point do his decisions start dragging the balance towards negative results before we stop assuming he’s a nice guy?

While I think Ethan deserves much better than to closet himself, he’s the exact thing Joyce needs right now – he’s never ever ever going to push her, so she can emerge from her trauma on her own time. Then again, humans shouldn’t exist solely for other humans to use as trauma extractors, and it seems like Joyce is already coming out of it anyway.

By modern day standards, the bombs that landed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren’t that big, scary as that fact may be. The largest bomb ever detonated to date was the Tsar Bomba, with a whopping 50 megaton detonation. The force of its blast was so large that its own fire ball, which was 5 miles in diameter, wasn’t able to touch the ground and was raised about 6 miles into the air. Supposedly from a distance of 100 miles away, it was seen as brighter than the sun.

A threesome with Billy Herrington, younger Harrison Ford (because he’s pretty much a grandpa nowadays) and Batman, while Cher’s Believe plays in the background. All three of them are oiled up. It happens in the locker room of a gym. Eventually, Jacob joins them.

How many 18-19 year old guys do you know (I’m assuming hes 18-19) would turn down sexy times? Is she really naive enough to think Ethans sexuality is a choice and therefore can be changed if he really wants to change?

Oh Joyce, those faces.
If you are not going to do anything together why do you even call it dating? I mean, kissing should be par for the course or at least some sort of show of affection? You are basically friends without benefits Ethan.

Believe it or not, there are people out there who want a relationship that doesn’t involve sex. You would call those people “asexual”. They want romance, just not sex. So it’s different then a friendship, because that’s platonic, not romantic.

More often than not, the asexual without genetic gender issues, are more in need of a visit to a reproductive endocrinologist. If nothing else, their general health is at stake – from CVD to osteoporosis because of issues of the HPG axis and pituitary micro-adenoma. Really.

god, WHAT is it with you and reproductive endocrinologists? we don’t have hormone issues any more than sexuals do for being sexual! asexuality is an orientation just like any other orientation and has nothing to do with hormones. tell you what: i’ll go to a reproductive endocrinologist for being asexual (and, since you so kindly suggested it a few days ago, genderless) as soon as you go to one for YOUR sexuality and/or gender identity (- based on the probabilities, i’ll assume you’re heterosexual and cisgender). okay?!

in response to your first comment, there are asexuals who have gotten their hormones checked in case their “problem” could be “fixed.” in reality, their hormones were all normal and they were trying to fix something that wasn’t broken in the first place.
in response to your second comment, i probably should have asked for clarification. in gender discussions, “sex” and “gender” are two distinct things; sex is physical (like what genitals you have) and gender is mental (what gender you feel like). so a transperson’s sex would be distinct from their gender unless they transitioned. anyway, i’m assuming from your comment that you assumed i am sexless-which i am not. i am essentially genderless, meaning i don’t feel like any one gender- i don’t feel inherently gendered. as far as i know, that is not necessarily linked to hormone issues. of course, i could get my hormones checked, but i’m really happy the way i am and don’t want to change myself. again, why would i fix something that isn’t broken?

Very true. Also, my boyfriend and I went the first month of our relationship without kissing- not because we didn’t want to, but because I was young, and things were complicated, and etc etc. But by no means was the relationship we had for that first month or anytime afterward something that could plausibly be labeled “platonic.”

Yes, I know. THAT’s why I specified some sort of affection. My point was that Ethan and Joyce are just there not even being romantic.
I get it, there hasn’t to be kissing or sex or whatever you want for a couple to be, well, a couple. But there should be AT LEAST something different from your other friends.

They both want emotional intimacy very very much.
At the moment, they think that their best choice is a companionate marriage (that is, a marriage with all the support and partnership, but little or no sex), but obviously their libidos are not gonna let them do that.

Dating is different for those trying to avoid having sex with the people they are most attracted to. Do we kiss? Where do we stop? How much is too much? Arousal can be sneaky, and powerful, and brings self-deception with it-your body is trying to trick you, your genes are trying to get themselves replicated despite your protestations. If the chemistry is mutual, dating is a real minefield for the abstinent. Then, if you should fall, you feel terribly guilty for making love to the one you love. How fucked up is that? Better to either just welcome sex, or stay away from each other entirely. There is a certain mercy to the idea of separating the sexes if you are going to ask them to not fuck each other. Imagine Joyce in an all-girls school. So much easier, right? Until she gets curious about the other girls, that is.

If Ethan wants to get past his crush on Jacob, all he needs to do is hear Jacob’s opinion that Spider-Man has better rogues than Batman. It stopped any potential crush in the Shortpacked! Universe after all. 😛

Yes Dorothy definitly knows Ethan is gay. She tried to tell Joyce, who responded with ‘if that was true he would be carrying a Barbie not that toy soldier” or some such nonsense.

Several people know he’s gay, or strongly suspect it.

Joyce is just being Joyce: she can cure him if she rubs against him long enough, she just knows it.

As for how nice a guy Ethan is…he isn’t really.
He’s willing to use Joyce to cover his fears of being outted. And she’s just perfect for his beard.
He hurt (dang was it Amber or Dorothy he was with on prom night?) and told her he was gay while they were in bed at the motel. Hell of a shock when you love a guy and are all ready for ‘the big night’.
Then he rubbed her nose in his relationship with Joyce by kissing Joyce in front of her.

No not a really nice guy.

Sarah needs to really ‘lock Joyce in the closet with her sex toy”. Joyce at least is trying to comes to terms with the lousy job of brainwashing her parents/church put her through. Driving me nuts watching her, but she is trying.

To be fair, it’s been strongly implied that Ethan only openly realised he was gay during prom night with Amber. Strongly implied, that is, that prom night went “Dammit it, can’t get it up… Oh. Damn. If I think about Mike guys I can. Umm, Amber, I just figured something out here…”

Ethan is a good person, but more deeply flawed than many seem to have picked up on yet. I don’t even think pairing him off with anyone would fix anything innately when the person he keeps fucking is himself.

Just a mostly unrelated question: Does it happen that someone is romantically attracted to another gender than sexually? Cause I never heard of it, so I wonder if these two things are automatically coupled…

For anyone that happens upon this and also wonders, yes, it does happen, but it is unusual. I’ve never heard of someone being romantically attracted to one sex and sexually to the other, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens. More common is asexuals who are romantically attracted to one or more genders. But there are also biromantic monosexuals. Girls With Slingshots features a couple that is a homoromantic asexual and a biromantic heterosexual (Jamie and Erin)–oh, and they’re absolutely adorable.